Written assignmentFamily health assessment

Family structure and style is essential Essay

Thirty-three questions, and three constraints on every one of them: open-ended, family-focused rather than individual, and mapped to the right pattern.

Editorial process

Last reviewed · August 23, 2026

Written by

Maren Caldwell

MSN, RN, CNE

Medical-surgical nursing, pharmacology and NCLEX preparation

Reviewed by

Dr. Tessa Redmond

DNP, RN, CNE

Evidence-based practice and clinical education

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Assignment instructions
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Final review

Three constraints on every one of the thirty-three

Three constraints apply to every question and each is easy to violate. Open-ended means the question cannot be answered yes or no, which rules out most of what comes naturally when you are trying to be thorough. Family-focused means the unit of analysis is the family rather than an individual within it, so asking how a person sleeps is the wrong question and asking how the household's sleep arrangements affect each other is the right one. And each question has to belong to the pattern it is filed under, which sounds trivial until you notice how easily a question about who prepares meals drifts between nutrition, role relationship and coping depending on how it is phrased. Read each question back and ask which pattern a marker would file it under; if two answers are available, rewrite it until only one is. That test catches most of the drift.

The instruction that this feeds a second assignment is worth taking seriously, because it means the questions have to produce usable data rather than merely being asked. Write them as though you will have to analyse the answers, which pushes toward questions about pattern, change and meaning: how mealtimes have changed since a particular event, what the family does when someone is unwell, who decides when to seek care. Two patterns are routinely mishandled. Sexuality and reproductive is the one students either skip or ask intrusively; the family-focused version is about how the family communicates on the subject and what health information reaches its members, not about individual behaviour. Sensory-perception is the one students confuse with cognition; it concerns hearing, vision, pain and how the family accommodates a member's sensory limitation. Finally, phrase everything at a reading level a family would actually use, since a question containing the phrase functional health pattern will not be answered.

Likely learning objectives

Write open-ended questions that resist a yes or no answer.
Shift the unit of analysis from the individual to the family.
Assign each question to the correct functional pattern.
Handle sensitive and easily confused patterns appropriately.

Assignment instructions

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Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.

Understanding family structure and style is essential to patient and family care. Conducting a family interview and needs assessment gathers information to identify strengths, as well as potential barriers to health. This information ultimately helps develop family-centered strategies for support and guidance. This family health assessment is a two-part assignment. The information you gather in this initial assignment will be utilized for the second assignment in Topic 3. Develop an interview questionnaire to be used in a family-focused functional assessment. The questionnaire must include three open-ended, family-focused questions to assess functional health patterns for each of the following: 1. Values/Health Perception 2. Nutrition 3. Sleep/Rest 4. Elimination 5. Activity/Exercise 6. Cognitive 7. Sensory-Perception 8. Self-Perception 9. Role Relationship 10. Sexuality 11. Coping You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes. Family structure and style is essential Essay Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages. Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor. The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

Course-wide instructions that accompany this question

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS Discussion Questions (DQ) Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words. Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source. One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words. I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses. Weekly Participation Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately. In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies. Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work). Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week. APA Format and Writing Quality Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required). Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation. I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition. Use of Direct Quotes I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly. As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content. It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source. LopesWrite Policy For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me. Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes. Family structure and style is essential Essay Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own? Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score. Late Policy The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies. Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances. If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect. I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension. As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading. Communication Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class. Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours. Family structure and style is essential Essay

What the questionnaire must contain

01An interview questionnaire for a family-focused functional assessment.
02Three questions for each of the eleven named functional health patterns.
03All questions open-ended.
04All questions family-focused rather than individually focused.
05Questions capable of supporting the Topic 3 assignment that follows.